Our Nervous Friends | Page 4

as we do, we can easily see how she had become
abnormally acute in her responses to the discomforts which are always
associated with painful emotions, and that emotional distress was
interpreted, or misinterpreted, as physical disorder. Each year she
became more truly a sensitive-plant, suffering and keenly alive to every
discomfort, more and more easily fatigued by the conflicts between
emotions, which craved expression, and the will, which demanded
repression.
Since the days in Florence there had been a growing antagonism to men,
certainly to all who indicated any suitor-like attitude. In her heart she
was forsworn. She had loved deeply once. Her idealism said it could
never come again. But her antagonism, and her idealism, and her
strength of will all failed to satisfy an inarticulate something which
locked her in her room for hours of repressed, unexplained sobbing.
Her writing became exhausting. Talks before her literary class were a
nightmare of anticipation--for through all, there had never been any
weakening of the beauty and intensity of her unselfish desire to give to
the world her best. The dear old uncle watched her with growing

apprehension. He persuaded her to seek health. It was first a water-
cure; then a minor, but ineffective operation; then much scientific
massage; and finally a rest-cure, and at the end no relief that lasted, but
a recurrence of symptoms which, to the uncle, spoke ominously of a
threatened mental balance. What truly was wrong? Do we not see that
this woman's nerves were crying out for help; that, as her wisest friends,
they were appealing for right ways of living; that they were pleading
for development of the body that had been only half-trained; that they
were beseeching a replacing of morbidness of feeling by those lost
joyous happiness-days? Were they not fairly cursing the wrong which
had robbed her of the hope and rights of her womanhood?
A new life came when she was twenty-eight, with the saving helper
who heard the cry of the suffering nerves, and interpreted their message.
She had told him all. His wise kindness made it easy to tell all. He
showed her the wrong invalidism thoughts, the unhappy, depressing,
devitalizing attitude toward death. He revealed truths unthought by her
of manhood and womanhood. He pointed out the poisonous trail of her
enmity, and she put it from her. He inspired her to make friends with
her nerves, who were so devotedly striving to save her. Simple, definite
counsel he gave, for her body's sake. Her physical development could
never be what early constructive care would have made it, but from out
of her frailty grew, in less than a year of active building-training, a
reserve of strength unknown for generations in the women of her line.
Wholesome advice made her see the undermining influence of her
morbid, mental habits, and resolutely she displaced them with the
productive kind that builds character. Finally, new wisdom and a truly
womanly conception of her duty and privilege replaced her antagonism
to men, as understanding had obliterated enmity. It would seem as
though Providence had been only waiting these changes, for they had
hardly become certainties in her life when the real lover came--a man
in every way worthy her fineness of instinct; one who could understand
her literary ambitions and even helpfully criticize her work; one who
brought wholesome habits of life and thought, and who could return
cheer for cheer, and whose love responded in kind to that which now so
wonderfully welled up within her.

Her new adjustments were to be deeply tried and their solidity and
worthiness tested to their center. Little Margaret came to make their
rare home perfect, and like a choice flower, she thrived in the glow of
its sunshine. At eighteen months, she was an ideal of babyhood. Then
the infection from an unknown source, the treacherous scarlatina, the
days of fierce, losing conflict, and sudden Death again smote Ethel
Lord. But she now knew and understood. There was deep sadness of
loss; there was greater joy in having had. There was an emptiness
where the little life had called forth loving attention; there was a fulness
of perfect mother-love which could never be taken. There were no
funeral days, no mourning black, no gruesome burial. There were
flowers, more tender love, and a beautified sorrow. Death was never
again to stand to Ethel Lord as irreparable loss, for a great faith had
made such loss impossible.
And such is the life of this woman, filled with the spirit of beauty of
soul--a woman who thrills husband and son with the uplift of her
unremitting joy in living, who inspires uncle and friends as one who
has mastered the art of a happy life, who holds the devotion of
neighbors and servants through